#September2011

Marvel’s dropped a new teaser for the awkward, awfully named Fear Itself: The Fearless. Like, really? Clunky a-go-go. Brakes! I’m pumping them. It’s also written by Matt Fraction, and it has Valkyrie wanting to cut down the FF to save the world.

Really, Frank Cho? You had to give Sin, the daughter of the Red Skull hulking, massive, painfully engorged breasts? Sigh. It’s particularly impressive that she can flaunt such things given the fact that her arms are skeleton gaunt.

I’ve been sick lately. For the past five days my life has consisted of scraping the existential paste out of bed, nodding somewhat coherently as I teach, and napping. Fitful, sweaty naps. The sort of naps that could fill a Gatorade bottle and whose flopping fiction could power a small town.

I have not slept. I cannot breath. I am here though. When there’s a dance you have to show up. Do your courtesies and press your fleshes.

I acknowledge that all comic book storylines are a bit incestuous. There’s only so many world-beaters you can tackle and events you can make the best of before everything stars to bleed together. However if you’re one of those people (hi!) who feels like Fear Itself is so very Blackest Night, you’re going to find this amazing. Introducing The Mighty, from the pages of Fear Itself.

It’s that mid-summer moment where the comic books are twisting in my greasy palms, affronted by humidity and my general toxicity. Comic books! One of the great stalwarts of summers, the MEGA-EVENTS coming out weekly. Say what you will about the general quality of the EXPLODEY TIME STORY ARCS that permeate the shelves during the summer, I’ve come to need them just as a means of passing time. Like marking days off a calendar, they’re there. And they’re omnipresent. Keeping me company.

Like the drunk Uncle at the Christmas parties who you thinks annoys you, but then when he dies in a horror shit-show of cirrhosis and bloody vomiting, you miss him under the mistletoe. Trying to kiss your Mom, his first cousin.

I don’t know what I’m writing about anymore. This is Variant Covers, your weekly take on the tasty licks hitting comic books shelves.

Today at a press conference hosted at Midtown Comics in New York City, Marvel unveiled their next event. Titled Fear Itself, the event is going to be broken into a seven issue miniseries, starting in April. The creative gurus behind it? Matt Fraction and Stuart Immonen. Yeah kid, now we’re playing with power. I’ve waited a long time for Fraction to get dealt an event, and it seems like I’m getting a Christmas gift early. Booyah! And Stuart Immonen? I’ve dug his artwork since finding him on Ellis’ Nextwave.

The Premise!
The story itself revolves around eight characters that Fraction plans on putting up against the God of Fear. This will also tie into some “secret at the heart of the Marvel Universe that had been hidden for centuries. Its revealing will ‘unleash something unspeakable, something that has been clamped down for centuries that will flourish and cast its shadow across the world.'” What would an event be without some sort of hidden secret or grand reveal?

Nothing!

If you want to enjoy events, you have to accept the tropes. I do.

Hit the jump for a Fraction and Quesada spouting off on the event, as well as some gorgeous promo artwork.